


the poor weld

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters: Gold Rush!AU [85]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, Angband Arc, Gen, HE IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST, POV Second Person, Poor Maedhros, Pre-Chapter 2 of "within the hollow crown", Unreliable Narrator bc the Narrator is the Devil, title from Siken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 13:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18993976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: More like fear than weariness, more like grief than anger.





	the poor weld

_...monsters are always hungry, darling, and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren’t stitched up quite right, the place they could almost slip right into through if the skin wasn’t trying to keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side of the theater where the curtain keeps rising._

_\- Richard Siken_

 

“Oh, my dear. You should not have come. What will the people say?”

Manwe pours tea for both of you, though he is not at home. His hair looks powdered. Strange, for that has not been the style for sixty years, before you both were born.

You long to stroke that smooth hair, and twist it apart, and see if after all, it has only gone brittle and grey. Is Manwe old, even while being _younger_?

Your fingers itch. You drink the tea instead.

“They will not say anything, Melkor,” he tells you, with a patient (heavy) sigh. “I have made clear that you are being punished, and my word on the subject will stand--whether I pay an occasional call or not.”

“Punished? You consider this a punishment?” A sumptuous dark house, and your tools, and your creatures (living and dead) and so much _information_ \--

(But of course Manwe knows nothing of this.)

 

_His teeth--his white, even teeth--left an oozing, weeping ring. You clean the cuts regretfully, and think the wound to be an open, inviting thing._

_He is and was just this: all unshed tears in eyes as grey as Feanor’s, all tender blood under skin much thinner than Feanor’s. You looked upon his bruised exhaustion, and you did more than look--you ran your hands over it, and it felt more like fear than weariness, more like grief than anger._

_You are hungry, but you have food sent to_ him _._

 

A spy whose name you know but do not waste a thought on comes to you with news. No sign of the Irishman in the city, not for months, but do you desire to hear of his sons?

(Yes.)

Well then. His eldest has been seen less at dances and more in the company of a young woman--a _Jew_ , the spy scoffs, sure of your matched disdain, but you do not care for such details.

You care only to know, for now, whether he is happy.

_Happy?_

_Yes,_ you say, and do not wrench the man’s skull from his spine as he stands. This is a benevolence. _Is the boy happy?_

_He seemed cheerful enough._

Before the Council, you groveled. Finwe was not present, Finwe with those horribly _kind_ eyes, with that booming laugh that shook your eardrums like a church organ.

You’d like to see Finwe dead.

 

_Gothmog sent word ahead, but did not alert you to his return until the night was almost over. Heavily you descended, and heavily your gaze fell on him--that frail helpless thing, that wild helpless thing, caged in the thin, strong body of a man._

_(But what a handsome child.)_

 

“I never believed-- _all_ of it, Melkor,” Manwe says, and with that hellish _enthusiasm_ he always seems to drape over his bones, he grips your hand in his. A firm, not a seeking grasp. He wants no answers, except the ones he gives himself. “But you will be careful, and judicious, in future, will you not?”

“Very careful, my dear brother,” you say, and you lean forward to kiss his brow.

 

Does that not feel- _-and he moaned, all animal pain and human loss._

_(You keep the ring on.)_

 

When you are free, you see him for yourself. From afar, and only once or twice--still, you must be _careful_. Feanor’s eldest is very beautiful in death, except for the inconvenient fact that he is still alive.

You love an inconvenience, when it turns its sting towards someone else.

(Feanor has not been much in the city.)

 

_You know him better than his father did, you decide, as you run your fingers along the curve of his father’s eye-sockets._

_Feanor is dead, and he understood only what he chose to._

_You are waiting for news you think you know. You are waiting for the scream under his fair freckled skin to be sung. You are waiting, and bone is cold._

 

“A fresh start,” Manwe explains, to the members of the Council, and they frown darkly, so you imagine them all in their graves. “I value Bauglir’s intelligence and insight--we won’t ask for his _judgment_.”

 _Bauglir?_ You want to mock. _Your nearest kin, rather--say Melkor, say brother, since they all know it._

But that would not do, and you keep the words tucked inside like a knife in a sheath of time.

 

_He was a boy when you met him, and you wonder--_

_Is the man he pretends to be now anything like the father whose teeth you are tapping like piano keys?_

_There are a dozen ways to find out._

_You think you’ll try all of them._


End file.
